The Mayor of London’s Proposals for Devolution London is more than just our capital city; it is a global powerhouse. Its population is as large as Wales and Scotland combined, and it has an economy larger than Denmark and Portugal combined. The city is home to more people than many EU member states, and is one of the few genuine ‘world cities’. Despite this, London’s devolution settlement remains weak and there is much room for improvement, particularly in ensuring that we see decisions taken by the local communities that they will affect. A new government has come in to power pledging further devolution; so now is the time to act.

The office of the Mayor of London, in place since 2000, has worked well. It has enabled more public services to be devolved from Whitehall and delivered closer to Londoners. Through democratic debate and a clear electoral mandate, it has given the UK’s premier city the leadership it needs in key policy areas such as transport infrastructure, policing, affordable housing, opportunities for children and young people, and environmental improvements.

Ten years, two and a half Mayoral terms and two incumbents later, the office of Mayor has proved itself to be a mature, democratically legitimate institution. As my election victory in 2008 showed, the Mayoralty has proved itself to be directly accountable to Londoners.

However, while the Mayoralty may have substantial informal powers, outside transport and policing, its formal powers are minimal. When the Mayoralty was created in 1999, the vision was bold but the devolution package was lacking in some crucial respects. The Greater London Authority (GLA) remains highly dependent on national government. The current London settlement falls well short of the city government arrangements in place in other world cities, such as New York and Tokyo.

This will no longer do. With a new coalition government strongly supportive of the principles of devolution, we should grasp the opportunity to develop further the London settlement. I welcome the Conservative Party’s ‘New Settlement for London’ publication and I also applaud the coalition Government’s decision to dismantle the Government Office for London (GoL) immediately. Building on these developments, I am proposing a new chapter in the devolution of Whitehall functions to London.

My key asks are that the London region of the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) be devolved to the GLA, and that the GLA group should be reorganised so as to make it as streamlined and fit for purpose as possible, including folding in the functions of the London Development Agency (LDA) into the GLA. Other proposals include giving London a greater say in the Royal Parks, suburban rail lines, policing, the Thames and the Olympic legacy.

Of course, London government does not consist solely of the Mayoralty. Greater devolution from Whitehall to the Mayor of London should be accompanied by greater devolution to the London boroughs, in line with the principles of “double devolution.” I have already made progress in giving boroughs greater discretion in a number of areas including local transport plans, and I am sure that we could go further in other areas such as housing and skills.

Greater power for the Mayor should also be matched by greater power for the London Assembly to hold the Mayor to account. Any functions transferred to the GLA should be subject to strong Assembly scrutiny, and consideration should be given to whether the Assembly should be made fully independent of the GLA, and whether it should have an enhanced role in strategy development.

Transparency will be another key principle in the next tranche of devolution. I have led the way in publishing GLA payments over £1,000 and the declarations of interest and of gifts and hospitality of my team. I would of course expect the same standards of openness to apply to the new elements of the reshaped GLA group.

Statutory powers are not, of course, the be all and end all for the Mayoralty. The officeholder will always rely on the profile and the influence that the role brings. But statute must enable rather than hinder the Mayor; free up rather than restrict. The reforms outlined below form part of a truly localist approach to public service delivery in which real and meaningful discretion is exercised democratically at the appropriate tier of government.

Boris Johnson Mayor of London 15 June 2010 Summary of proposals

01. **Housing and regeneration** The HCA in London should be devolved to the GLA group, so that the Mayor has a full set of powers to deliver his housing policies.

02. **Olympic legacy** The Olympic Park Legacy Company should be reconstituted as a Mayoral Development Corporation (MDC), reporting directly to the Mayor, and democratically accountable to Londoners through the Mayor.

03. **Royal Parks Agency (RPA)** Responsibility for the Royal Parks should be devolved from Whitehall to the Mayor, to ensure clear democratic accountability to Londoners. Its funding should be transferred in full from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) to the GLA.

04. **Skills** The Mayor, and the London Skills and Employment Board (LSEB) which he chairs, should get the power to approve the allocation of the adult skills budget in London. Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Job Centre Plus (JCP) expenditure on skills and employment in London should have regard to the LSEB strategy.

05. **Rail franchises** The Mayor and Secretary of State for Transport should jointly award the rail franchises for those suburban rail lines which are largely contained within the boundaries of greater London, to ensure a more integrated transport system. The Mayor should have a formal role in monitoring the franchises.

06. **Port of London Authority (PLA)** The PLA should be devolved to the GLA group given the critical importance of the Thames to London’s prosperity and the need to integrate its role with the Mayor’s Transport Strategy and London Plan. The Mayor should appoint the PLA Board with Kent and Essex also given the right of representation.

07. **Traffic control** The Mayor should be given greater flexibility over traffic control on Transport for London (TfL) roads so that he can develop more effective solutions to get traffic in London flowing more smoothly.

08. **Policing** The Metropolitan Police Authority’s (MPA) functions should be divided between the Mayor and the Assembly with the Mayor taking on executive functions and the Assembly taking on the scrutiny function. This would create a policing board for London under the Mayor’s control. The Home Secretary and the Mayor would jointly appoint the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) Commissioner, who would in turn appoint the senior team in the MPS.

09. **A reconstituted GLA group** The GLA group should be reorganised to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. The London region of the HCA, the RPA and the PLA should be devolved to the GLA. The LDA’s functions should be folded into the GLA with the LDA ceasing to exist; and the MPA’s functions should be revamped and divided between the Mayor and the Assembly.

10. **Resilience** Responsibility for resilience issues in London should be devolved from GoL, which is being abolished, to the Mayor, given his lead on city-wide operations.

11. **Statutory strategies** The Mayor should be given a freer hand to produce the plans and strategies of his choice, rather than being required to produce a dozen statutory strategies, over half of which lack any real implementation powers. The unnecessary double consultation process should be replaced by a single consultation period.

12. **General power of competence** In line with the government’s plans to introduce a general power of competence for local authorities, the Mayor should have greater freedom to deliver public services provided in the capital.

13. **Financial flexibility** The detailed ring-fencing of central government grants within areas such as policing detracts from the principles of devolution, and hinders the Mayor’s ability to allocate resources according to his priorities. It should be discontinued.

**Other issues for discussion**

14. **The London Assembly** The greater powers for the Mayor should be matched by greater powers for the London Assembly to hold him to account. Consideration should be given to granting the Assembly an enhanced role in strategy development, and also to separating the London Assembly from the GLA so that it is seen as an independent scrutiny body.

15. **Waste** The government should look at options for strengthening the role of the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWaRB) in delivering efficient and effective waste management for London.

16. **Energy and Climate Change** Consideration should be given to mechanisms that can drive a more efficient, co-ordinated approach to the delivery of climate change and alternative energy programmes in London.

17. **Health** Building on his existing role, the Mayor should have a role in allocating financial resources for public health in London (excluding clinical services). London government comprises a directly elected Mayor and a 25-strong directly elected London Assembly.

The Mayor’s role is to provide leadership for London and co-ordinate public service delivery in certain key areas of physical and social infrastructure. The Assembly’s role is to act as the scrutiny body for the GLA group, and to hold the Mayoralty accountable for its performance.

The GLA group comprises five organisations. The GLA is at the centre and is home to the Mayor and Assembly. It produces the Mayor’s 12 statutory strategies, and oversees the annual budget-setting process for the Group and its four functional bodies. The four functional bodies are: TfL, LDA, MPA whose role is to oversee the work of the MPS; and the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority (LFEPA).

Currently the Mayor’s principal functions can be divided between those activities that are under the Mayoralty’s direct influence, and those under its indirect influence.

Direct influence

- Transport – the GLA Act places TfL under the Mayor’s direct control.
- Economic development – as with TfL, the GLA Act places the LDA under the Mayor’s direct influence, although it is also answerable to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS).
- Planning decisions – for strategic planning decisions in London, the Mayor can veto proposals should they not fit with the Mayor’s planning policies as set out in the statutory London Plan, and in some cases take over planning applications from the boroughs and grant approval.
- Community safety – the Mayor appoints the chairs of the MPA and LFEPA, and sets both bodies’ budgets.

Indirect influence

- Skills and employment – the Mayor has limited oversight of the work of Skills Funding Agency (SFA) but the SFA does not have a London region, is not part of the GLA group and primarily answers to BIS.
- Housing and regeneration – as a result of setting a statutory Housing Strategy and chairing the London HCA Board, the Mayor has some oversight of the London HCA. But it is not part of the GLA group, and primarily answers to Communities and Local Government (CLG).
- Waste – the Mayor produces a waste strategy and appoints the chair, and one independent representative, of LWaRB which has £84m to invest in major waste infrastructure projects in London over a three-year period. The Board has to ‘act in accordance with the Mayor’s municipal waste strategy’ and this gives the Mayor some scope for influencing the future development of London’s waste infrastructure. All waste contracts are reviewed by the GLA for alignment with the waste strategy, and waste facilities are reviewed through the Mayor’s planning powers.

1. Housing and regeneration

The London HCA invests £1.1bn annually in housing and regeneration programmes in the capital. The split responsibilities between national and London government are sub-optimal for control over the Agency:

- The Mayor must by law produce the London Housing Strategy and is accountable in the eyes of the public for the delivery of the HCA programme in London. But he lacks the ultimate responsibility for its budget or day-to-day decision-making. The HCA is required only to have regard to the Mayor’s policies.
- The Mayor’s ability to make joined up strategic decisions about the major infrastructure for which he is responsible – on social housing, transport and economic development – is restricted, as the Mayor cannot wrap housing investment decisions into the GLA group’s budget and planning processes. This limits the scope for the Mayor to devolve investment powers through to boroughs.
- The Assembly is not able to play a full and effective role in scrutinising the delivery of housing on behalf of Londoners.

The London HCA should therefore be incorporated into the GLA group, being under the Mayor’s direct influence and subject to scrutiny by the London Assembly. This will give the Mayor greater freedom on how he funds his priorities, and will mean that he has greater flexibility to respond to the needs of Londoners and to improve further the key services for which he has responsibility, like the provision of new affordable housing. The Mayor also envisages that this would be an area in which the boroughs can play an enhanced role.

It is envisaged that a London housing and regeneration body would be an executive arm of the GLA. This proposal would involve reviewing Section 31 of the GLA Act 1999, which prevents the GLA incurring expenditure in the areas of housing, education services, social services or health services.

2. Olympic legacy

The Mayor strongly supports proposals to create the MDC to drive the Olympic legacy and related regeneration in the Lower Lea Valley. This would be based on the standard Urban Development Corporation (UDC) model, but reporting solely to the Mayor rather than to government like current UDCs. There are currently up to seven public sector bodies contributing to the regeneration of the Lower Lea Valley, each with slightly differing remits, powers, land ownerships and geographical scopes.

This proliferation causes unnecessary duplication and confusion, as well as the serious risk of misaligned priorities and work programmes, all of which reduces value for public money and the effectiveness of efforts to deliver much-needed regeneration in the area. Plans for an Olympic legacy and the regeneration of the Lower Lea Valley would gain from the establishment of the MDC, which would be well placed to coordinate action in east London, and would have democratic accountability through the Mayor. 3. Royal Parks Agency

The RPA looks after London’s most important and well-loved open spaces, not only for Londoners but also for the millions of tourists who visit London every year. Parks like St James’s Park, Regent’s Park, Hyde Park and Richmond Park are an integral part of daily life in the capital. For many residents it is their main chance to enjoy open space close to their homes, and the Royal Parks also have an impact on policies including transport, environment, tourism and sport.

The RPA currently answers to the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, and represents a very small part of the overall budget of the DCMS. As such, it is completely unaccountable either to the Mayor or to Londoners. Decisions such as whether to hold an event in Hyde Park, to charge parking fees in Richmond Park or to restore sporting facilities in Regent’s Park are made by central government rather than at a local level. This disconnection from London government means that the full benefits of the parks, environmentally and as an amenity for Londoners, are not being delivered.

In line with the principle of decentralisation, the Agency needs to be accountable to Londoners. The Mayor therefore proposes that it should be devolved to the GLA, along with the allocated budget from DCMS. The Agency would become an executive arm of the GLA and subject to the scrutiny of the London Assembly. The Mayor would appoint the chair and other board members of the RPA, with the government retaining reserve powers as in other areas of GLA activity.

4. Skills

In London, further devolution of skills and employment to the Mayor is needed. Currently the LSEB, chaired by the Mayor, sets the strategy to which the London adult skills budget of BIS is supposed to conform. There is currently no link to DWP and JCP investment in welfare to work programmes. LDA programmes which focus more on tackling worklessness are already devolved to the Mayor.

There needs to be a more streamlined and strategic approach to skills and employment investment in London designed to activate and support a demand led system. The Mayor’s powers in relation to adult skills funding should be strengthened through a power to approve the allocation of the London adult skills budget, thus ensuring that budget and investment decisions are fully aligned to the Mayor’s and the LSEB’s Employment and Skills Strategy.

DWP and JCP expenditure on skills and employment in London should be made with regard to the LSEB’s Strategy. The London Skills and Employment Strategy would then set the direction for employment and skills in London comprising the adult skills budget for London, DWP investment, and other programmes developed in London. The Mayor also envisages that this would be an area in which the boroughs can play an enhanced role. 5. Rail franchises

Railways are vital to London. Seventy per cent of all National Rail journeys start or finish in London and Londoners make more rail trips per capita than any other region. Rail and underground account for 77% of all commuter journeys to central London and 44% of rail journeys in London involve transfers to or from the underground or the Docklands Light Railway.

However, at present, the two different transport systems – Network Rail and TfL – too often lead to disjointed journeys, with variable services and prices. It is in the interests of public transport users in London, particularly in south London, to have greater integration between surface rail, and underground and buses.

Without a move to a more co-ordinated system of public transport across the capital, and with it a greater Mayoral say in surface rail services, the current imbalance whereby 5% less travel in south London is by public transport than north London – and there is 10% more car usage in south London as a consequence – will continue.

There are benefits to be gained from a closer working relationship between the Department for Transport (DfT) and TfL in relation to those franchises, particularly with regard to efforts to improve co-ordination of rail services with underground, bus, cycling and other modes of transport. At present, neither the Mayor nor TfL have any formal role in either the awarding or monitoring of those rail franchises.

To improve the level of service, to increase public transport usage, and to connect different parts of the city better, the award of franchises on suburban rail lines which are substantially in London should be made jointly by the Mayor and the Secretary of State for Transport. The Mayor should also have a formal role in the monitoring of rail franchises.

The suburban rail services which are substantially based in the GLA geographical area are:

**London / Kent**

- Charing Cross, Victoria or Cannon Street, to/from Dartford;
- Blackfriars or Victoria, to/from Sevenoaks, via Swanley;
- Charing Cross, Cannon Street or Victoria, to/from Sevenoaks, via Orpington;

**London / Surrey**

- Victoria or London Bridge, to/from Caterham;
- Victoria or London Bridge, to/from Tattenham Corner;
- Victoria or London Bridge, to/from Epsom or Epsom Downs;
- Waterloo, to/from at Hampton Court;
- Waterloo, to/from Shepperton;
- Waterloo, to/from Epsom;

**London / Berkshire**

- Waterloo, to/from Windsor and Eton Riverside;
- Paddington, to/from Maidenhead (Crossrail service start point); London / Hertfordshire
- Kings Cross Thameslink, to/from Luton;
- Kings Cross or Moorgate, to/from Welwyn Garden City;
- Kings Cross or Moorgate, to/from Hertford North;
- Liverpool Street, to/from Hertford East;

London / Essex

- Liverpool Street, to/from at Shenfield; and
- Fenchurch Street, to/from Grays, via Rainham.

6. Port of London Authority

The Thames is a central part of London, but the Mayor has no control over it. Rather, it is under the control of the PLA, which has responsibilities for the entire tidal Thames from Teddington in the west to the Thames Estuary in the east, and owns much of the riverbed and foreshore up to the mean high water mark.

Its principal powers and duties are to:

- Provide, maintain, operate and improve port and harbour services and facilities in, or in the vicinity of, the Thames
- Take such action as the PLA considers necessary or desirable for, the improvement and conservancy of the Thames.

The PLA’s Board comprises up to 13 members, of which five are currently appointed by the Secretary of State for Transport and up to a further eight by the Board itself. The Mayor has no right to appoint anyone to the board.

The lack of democratic accountability of the PLA, and its emphasis on harbour services, severely hinders development of the Thames for other uses. In particular, it can make it difficult for the Mayor to deliver policies on promoting the use of the river by boats, encouraging attractive riverside developments, and building bridges.

Given the critical importance of the Thames to London’s prosperity, and to improve the democratic accountability of the PLA to Londoners, the PLA should be devolved to the GLA group and its funding transferred to the Mayor. It should also be required to implement the Mayor’s Transport Strategy and the London Plan and the Mayor should have the right to appoint its board, with Kent and Essex also given the right of representation.

7. Traffic control

London has unique traffic issues because of the high levels of congestion on its roads. Yet the Mayor’s power to respond to these problems is limited by the tight control the DfT exercises over traffic schemes and signage.

The Mayor should be given greater flexibility over traffic control on TfL roads, so that he can develop more effective solutions to London’s transport problems, and get traffic flowing more smoothly. Greater flexibility should also be given to City Hall and London boroughs in relation to traffic signs, though the safety benefits of national consistency will place certain limits on the degree of decentralisation that is feasible in this context. It is also vitally important that the DfT works with the Mayor to speed up the approval process for changes to traffic sign regulations and for piloting innovative schemes to improve traffic flow. Examples of these schemes include the following:

- Allowing cyclists to turn left at a red signal;
- Pedestrian countdown on traffic lights; and
- Signage on cycle lanes.

8. Policing

The Mayor, having been democratically elected with a mandate over policing, remains the direct line of accountability between the MPS and the people of London. The Mayor, just like the proposed directly elected Police Commissioners across the country, is responsible for making policing accountable to the public.

Currently, the MPS is overseen by the MPA, which has a dual role both as an executive board and a public scrutiny body for the police. This has led to confusion between its two functions, with some Members publicly criticising decisions they themselves helped make.

The Mayor should retain political accountability for the policing of the capital, and greater clarity should be given to the distinct roles of executive governance and democratic scrutiny.

As a result, the executive functions of the MPA should transfer to the Mayor and its scrutiny function should transfer to the Assembly.

The Mayor should be, or should be given the power to appoint, the chair of a new Policing Board based in the GLA. The Mayor would also appoint the other Board members. Under the Mayor’s leadership, the Policing Board would set overall policing policy and strategic priorities, and ensure an efficient and effective police service for London. The Mayor would retain responsibility for monitoring and managing the police budget, and for monitoring performance on crime and the Policing Plan targets.

The Home Secretary and the Mayor would jointly appoint the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. The Commissioner would then appoint the Deputy Commissioner and other members of the MPS’s senior management team.

9. A reconstituted GLA group

The current structure of the GLA group, which was enshrined in legislation in 1999 when the GLA was set up, is rigid and leads to unnecessary duplication between different bodies, particularly the GLA and the LDA. Yet the Mayor is unable to restructure the GLA group to make it more efficient and effective.

Despite these constraints, much has been achieved and the Boards and staff of the functional bodies within the GLA group are to be congratulated on their successes.

However, after ten years’ experience the Mayor believes it is time to move on. We need an organisational structure which is equipped to take on the various functions discussed elsewhere in this document; which enables more streamlined decision-making by the Mayor; which improves accountability and transparency; and which is more cost effective given the increasing pressure on resources.

The London region of the HCA, the RPA and the PLA should be devolved to the GLA. The LDA’s functions should be folded into the GLA with the result that the LDA would cease to exist; and the MPA’s functions should be revamped and divided between the Mayor and the Assembly.

10. Resilience

Responsibility for London Resilience currently rests with GoL, which the government is currently abolishing.

It is of course essential that central government – through its national resilience planning and COBRA processes – maintains vigilance over the security of key national functions and facilities in the capital city. But the vast majority of resilience operations relate to London as a locality rather than to major national issues arising from the status of London as the capital city.

It is therefore proposed that the Mayor should not only take over the responsibilities currently exercised by GoL in relation to resilience, but should also be invited to COBRA meetings dealing with London-based incidents as a matter of course. GoL’s Resilience team should transfer to the GLA so as to improve co-ordination of Resilience issues across the three tiers of government in the capital.

11. Statutory strategies

There are currently 12 statutory Mayoral strategies, which the Mayor is required to produce. In doing so, he is required to go through a two stage consultation process, first with the Assembly and the functional bodies and then with others. The strategies cover spatial development (known as the London Plan), transport, economic development, housing, culture, health inequalities and the environment (the remaining six). There is a thirteenth strategy on skills and employment issues which is set by the LSEB and so, strictly speaking, is not a statutory Mayoral strategy, although it is often regarded as such.

The current system of statutory strategies is unnecessarily burdensome for the Mayor, taking up time and resources, and committing him to protracted bureaucratic processes. For example, following the procedures set down in statute, it takes the Mayor more than a year and a half to revise his economic development strategy. Especially at a time of economic problems, this has the effect of delaying action to address the real issues for Londoners.

While some strategies are absolutely central to what any Mayoralty would look to achieve, particularly the London Plan, the resources freed up as a result of a simplified process could be used to develop programmes aimed at delivering practical improvements to the quality of life for Londoners.

It is therefore proposed that unnecessary statutory requirements for Mayoral strategies should be abolished, and the two stage consultation process be replaced by a single consultation period.

The important role the Assembly has to play in strategy development should be carefully considered as part of any government review of the GLA.

12. General power of competence

Certain statutory limitations are currently in place on the Mayor’s activities at the GLA by virtue of Section 31 of the GLA Act 1999. Essentially they mean that the Mayoralty cannot incur expenditure on functions carried out elsewhere in the GLA group (transport, police and fire) or on functions carried out by other tiers of government (housing, education, and social services, which are undertaken by local authorities, and health which is run from Whitehall).

The restrictions in place are unnecessarily restrictive and detract from the principles of devolution and localism. To deliver Mayoral priorities, it is essential that the Mayor works with London boroughs and central government agencies. It should be up to the Mayor’s judgement to decide when, as part of such partnerships, it is sensible for him to provide additional services which complement those offered by other public bodies, including London boroughs, and he should be held accountable for that by Londoners.

It is therefore proposed that unnecessary limitations on the Mayor’s general power to act in the interests of Londoners should be ended by giving him a general power of competence.

The Mayor welcomes the government’s proposal to provide local authorities with a general power of competence, and this should be extended to him. This would enable the Mayor to take any action to further London’s interests in a way that is not specifically prohibited by law – though without his wishing to encroach on mainstream services carried out by boroughs and other public authorities.

13. Financial flexibility

The current GLA group incurs expenditure of roughly £15bn annually, comprising £12bn of revenue and £3bn of capital. Of the revenue expenditure, around half is met by grants from Whitehall coming from the DfT to fund TfL, BIS to fund the LDA, the Home Office to fund the MPA, and CLG to fund the GLA.

In addition, each department can further ring fence the money it gives to a GLA body for particular, often quite specific, uses. Examples of ring-fenced grants include Neighbourhood Policing and the Crime Fighting Fund.

As a consequence, in total, the GLA group receives about 100 distinct payments a year from central government for different purposes. This makes it difficult for the Mayor to allocate his budget according to the priorities he was elected on, and to plan ahead with certainty. To give the Mayor more financial freedom, and in line with other policy movements away from the ring-fencing of grants to local government, ring-fencing of grants should be ended, giving the Mayor greater flexibility to invest in key London priorities.

14. Enhancing the role of the London Assembly

The Mayor would expect the role of the London Assembly to expand in line with the additional and altered responsibilities of the Mayor and GLA. He strongly supports such a move: it is right that he should be fully accountable in public and for the Assembly to subject the Mayor to close scrutiny for his performance.

In addition, the role the Assembly plays in the development of Mayoral strategies needs to be reviewed. Within what we would expect to be a smaller number of statutory strategies and a more streamlined consultation process, consideration should be given to an enhanced strategy development role for the Assembly.

As the Assembly’s functions expand, it raises the question as to whether the current institutional arrangements are still fit for purpose. The Assembly is part of the GLA. So the executive function of the Mayor and the scrutiny function of the Assembly are internalised within the Authority. This is confusing for the public and blurs accountability. It contrasts with, for example, the clear separation which exists between Ministers in government and the scrutiny to which they are subjected by parliamentary Select Committees.

Consideration should be given to the Assembly becoming a separate, free-standing and independent scrutiny body with its functions and staffing clearly distinguishable from the Mayoralty. This need not preclude preserving the current shared support services so as to be cost effective.

15. Waste

London faces both a large waste challenge, given its recycling rates and rising landfill costs, as well as a big economic opportunity from a move to seeing waste as a resource. The Mayor’s Waste Strategy and London Plan highlight these challenges and opportunities and provide a tool to influence waste contracts and planning applications in London.

The creation of LWaRB has been a positive step towards ensuring the Mayor and London’s boroughs take a co-ordinated approach to waste in London. Its funding of £84m comes partly from government grant from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and partly from LDA investment. In discharging its duties, it has the most comprehensive view of the waste pipeline in London. A government review of the GLA should also look at options for strengthening LWaRB’s role in delivering efficient and effective waste management for London. 16. Energy and Climate Change

The UK and London have committed to aggressive CO₂ targets. In parallel, there are pressures on the energy supply side due to the need to build significant amounts of new energy infrastructure. Yet delivery of climate change and alternative energy programmes in London is highly fragmented, thereby impeding delivery at scale. A more regional approach to these issues should be considered which would benefit both local authorities and London as a whole.

17. Health

Although the Mayoralty has been granted a role in public health issues in London, it has no role in resource allocation on public health issues. The GLA, working in partnership with London boroughs and the NHS, would be best placed to assume responsibility for the allocation of funds necessary for a pan London approach to taking forward this work (excluding clinical services).

On the wider NHS agenda, the establishment of the NHS Board with responsibility for allocating resource and providing commissioning guidelines and the change in governance arrangements of Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) to provide for directly elected and authority nominated members gives rise to the question as to the appropriate role for the Mayor within these new arrangements. At this stage it is premature to reach any firm conclusions. However the GLA would expect to be involved in discussions about how these new arrangements would work in London, in order to be assured that the health needs of the capital as a whole are appropriately addressed.